Worker and community advocate Veronica Black has had her fair share of battles.
The fight for worker’s health and safety at ANZ bank bought Veronica Black and husband Matt Goodwin together.
“Our eyes met across a strategy meeting table and that was it.”
Working for rival state branches of the Finance Sector Union, they kept their blossoming relationship under wraps until deciding to live together.
The pair settled in Sydney's Newtown where they live with their three children, and ten years later 36 year old Veronica is Director of Organising in the union's NSW/ACT branch.
Veronica's interest in community activism was sparked at Southern Cross University in Lismore where she answered a student newspaper advertisement for volunteer mediators. Veronica completed the training, but didn't enjoy mediation.
“I prefer to pick a side and fight, rather than be a balanced adjudicator.”
Veronica became active on the student representative council and sat on the university's academic board.
“Few union organisers made the trip to Lismore, so people in the community often called me for industrial help. My passion for union organising grew from that experience.”
An Organising Works traineeship led to a placement with the Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Union.
With a growing reputation for fighting for others, at the age of 20 Veronica was in a fight for her own life. In the 1995 state election Veronica ran for the seat of Ballina. At the time she was the youngest woman to win pre-selection for a NSW seat. While on route to an ALP campaign training session, the car Veronica and her campaign director were travelling in left the road at high speed, and slammed into a tree.
As the front seat passenger, Veronica bore the brunt of the collision and sustained multiple serious injuries. A broken leg, multiple stitches, damaged liver and collapsed lung kept Veronica in hospital for months, however it took another year before the full extent of her injuries was known.
“I broke my back in three places, needing spine fusion surgery to prevent spinal cord damage.”
Doctors told Veronica she would never work fulltime again. She dutifully followed the doctors’ orders, but eleven years ago she reached a turning point. After fighting for her life and recovering from injury, Veronica had one more fight ahead of her.
“I couldn’t listen any more. I decided I would do the things I wanted to do. I would have a life and make a contribution, and just deal with the pain rather than sitting at home feeling miserable.”
Veronica continues to experience chronic pain and back problems but is working, and enjoying life with Matt, and children Zac, Jake and Kate. Her passion for art and reading helps sustain her.
By combining political activism with a love of photography Veronica has amassed a vast collection of social movement images, urban landscapes and portraits, and she collects Booker Prize nominated books.
“I keep old nominee lists in my handbag, so I can search second-hand bookshops. I will read them all eventually.”
“The accident helped me gain a longer term perspective. Things take time, and some things are completely out of my control. I can't fight that.”
This profile was written as an assignment from a course I am undertaking with the Sydney Writers Centre and was published with the permission of Veronica Black.
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Yammer
It started with the gender pay gap in Australia. Nationally it's 17%, in the finance sector it's 28%.
Connect with your coworkers
Yammer is the free private social network for your company
Enter your work email. Sign up.
“Free? Private?” I thought. “Yeah right.”
Yammering
The union I work for, the FSU, tries to address this by conducting joint pay equity audits and projects in Australian finance sector companies.
At a meeting with one of these companies we started fleshing out the joint communications strategy, including internal comms.
With around 180 staff in my organisation, I planned to communicate with colleagues via email and the fortnightly internal e-news. The finance sector company, with around 20,000 employees, said they plan to use Yammer.
I had no idea what they were talking about.
After the meeting I went straight back to my desk and looked up Yammer. This is what the home page said:
Connect with your coworkers
Yammer is the free private social network for your company
Enter your work email. Sign up.
“Free? Private?” I thought. “Yeah right.”
Then I figured, what the hell, I can sign up, have a play, and shut down the account if it's bogus right?
That was a month ago.
On the first day I read the FAQs, the privacy policy, and googled the company and the board members. The CEO is the guy who set up PayPal. There's a former Facebook exec on the board. All the others looked legit. The testimonials looked legit.
By the end of the first day I had invited a couple of people I'm close to at work to join Yammer. We had fun for a while chatting online, and then we got bored and got on with our work.
On the second day I logged on and discovered the Yammer population had doubled. Everyone had invited another co-worker to join. Even members of the leadership team joined in. We had fun for a while, chatting online, and then we got bored and got on with our work.
We were all really busy because our biennial National Conference was coming up and there was lots of preparatory work to be done, so Yammer was quiet on the third day and the fourth day. And the fifth and the sixth. On the seventh day I posted an update. “Not much yammering going on.”
A colleague responded quickly. “Too busy to be yammering.” And then my colleague mentioned the things she was working on, giving me insight into her working day.
I started thinking about other ways we could use Yammer. What could we possibly talk about that we couldn't get covered with emails and phone calls? Was it just a time-waster? A superfluous tool?
It was on my mind while we filmed interviews with conference delegates. They talked about the power of connecting people.
We decided to use Yammer to connect our own people with the conference that would determine their work priorities for at least the next two years.
We sent an email to all staff telling them we would be providing live updates from Conference via Yammer. We would also be publishing daily email updates, and they would receive those, but only people on Yammer would receive regular updates, as well as photos.
Our Yammer population increased dramatically, 80 staff signed up in 24 hours.
It was around that time that I had an email from Aaron, a San Francisco based Yammer account executive. He'd noticed an increase in our Yammer population, and wondered if he could be of assistance. He attached a case study guide to the email which talked about the sort of companies using Yammer (around 100,000 worldwide) and some examples of how some of those companies are using it.
Colleagues from all around the country are now connecting with each other using the in-house micro-blogging service that allows users to post updates and exchange private messages with each other. Yammer assumes you are talking about work by posing the question “What are you working on? “ in the status update field.
Over the four day conference we provided live coverage of the presentations, discussions and resolutions of conference. We posted over 700 updates, posting every few minutes during some sessions. Verbatim statements, as well as photos and links to the conference videos were published on Yammer. We even posted photos of the food.
The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. Colleagues have said it almost felt like they were present at the conference, others said it made them feel included. They were able to ask questions, and make comments, and staff who couldn't follow the live feed were able to catch up at a time that was more convenient.
There were some grumbles about the volume of updates, particularly from people who had been out on the road for four days, but by using Yammer they could make their thoughts known and I was able to provide a short summary of what they'd missed.
So our first big Yammer experience has been a good one, and many of us are now talking about how we can best use Yammer in future.
And while we work those things out some useful discussions are occurring on Yammer, about how we should behave toward one another online, and the different things that we are working on. These insights can lead us to think about ways we might help our colleagues or contribute to their projects, or how what they're doing may help you and your work.
We are having conversations online that we wouldn't be having otherwise – how often do you ring a colleague just to ask them what they're working on? And if you don't know what colleagues are working on, how can you possibly link up, and share information?
When you publish on the company feed on Yammer you are talking to everyone in your organisation. It's an enormous opportunity that also comes with risks. It is incredibly important to think about how others may perceive you and the things you say when you post an update on Yammer. Like with any social media, rigorous care should be taken in order to protect your reputation. Choose your words carefully.
At the moment Yammer is providing us with the ability to work collaboratively, and stay in touch with colleagues that are not geographically close, and I'm enjoying getting to know them better. I am also excited about learning what other things Yammer can enable us to do.
YammeringSunday, June 12, 2011
artbylea
This is what comes from having time on your hands...
I now have an online gallery of some of the visual art I have produced over the last ten years.
Enjoy.
I now have an online gallery of some of the visual art I have produced over the last ten years.
Enjoy.
Review: The Threepenny Opera
Either high school productions have improved greatly since I last saw one nearly 30 years ago, or the drama students at Koonung Secondary are exceptional. The performance I attended on Saturday evening was terrific.
The small close-knit group of students ranging from Year 8 to Year 12 were brave to have a go at this show, and they were prepared to take risks. Those risks well and truly paid off and the company can be proud of what they have achieved.
Students composed music for the shows songs, and the music was a highlight of the night's performance. Bravo. My 13 year old companion thought the soundtrack created too cheerful a mood to complement the dark material the actors were working with, but I thought it was fitting and struck the right note of melancholy.
The simple staging techniques were well executed and effective. The absence of scenery and extensive costuming exposes the actors more than usual; the mood, the scene, all has to be conveyed by the actor, as well as the dialogue. Hard going, but the Koonung students pulled it off. The cast members, many of them experienced performers, were well equipped to cope with the demands of the script.
The Threepenny Opera is a bit “out there” and heavy and despite their youth the cast members handled the material with maturity and sincerity.
My only quibble is a technical one. I had trouble hearing the soloists over the piano, and I was seated in the second row. The majority of the theatre couldn't hear those lovely singing voices well enough to truly appreciate them.
Overall, a top show. 4 stars.
The small close-knit group of students ranging from Year 8 to Year 12 were brave to have a go at this show, and they were prepared to take risks. Those risks well and truly paid off and the company can be proud of what they have achieved.
Students composed music for the shows songs, and the music was a highlight of the night's performance. Bravo. My 13 year old companion thought the soundtrack created too cheerful a mood to complement the dark material the actors were working with, but I thought it was fitting and struck the right note of melancholy.
The simple staging techniques were well executed and effective. The absence of scenery and extensive costuming exposes the actors more than usual; the mood, the scene, all has to be conveyed by the actor, as well as the dialogue. Hard going, but the Koonung students pulled it off. The cast members, many of them experienced performers, were well equipped to cope with the demands of the script.
The Threepenny Opera is a bit “out there” and heavy and despite their youth the cast members handled the material with maturity and sincerity.
My only quibble is a technical one. I had trouble hearing the soloists over the piano, and I was seated in the second row. The majority of the theatre couldn't hear those lovely singing voices well enough to truly appreciate them.
Overall, a top show. 4 stars.
The Tweetpenny Opera?
Published in the Koonung Secondary College newsletter 31st May 2011
The Tweetpenny Opera?
I heard a sample of Koonung Secondary College’s forthcoming production of Bertolt Brecht & Kurt Weill’s The Threepenny Opera at a recent Open Night at the school, and I was so impressed by the students’ performance I jumped online and booked tickets straight away, and you should too!
But don’t just take my word for it. I asked Casey Bennetto, who starred in the joint Malthouse Theatre and Victorian Opera production of The Threepenny Opera in 2010, why the Koonung Secondary College community should see this play. Here’s the response Casey sent in a series of tweets via Twitter.
“3Penny is one of the first musicals to attempt to turn the form on its head - where musicals are normally la-di-da and implausible romance and sugary ridiculousness, 3Penny breaks out the chainsaw. Everyone is corrupt, everyone has an angle. Full of sex and violence. And the school community will be seeing this? I object in the strongest possible terms!”
So there you have it folks - an evening of debauchery awaits you! I hope to see you there.
Leanne Shingles
The Tweetpenny Opera?
I heard a sample of Koonung Secondary College’s forthcoming production of Bertolt Brecht & Kurt Weill’s The Threepenny Opera at a recent Open Night at the school, and I was so impressed by the students’ performance I jumped online and booked tickets straight away, and you should too!
But don’t just take my word for it. I asked Casey Bennetto, who starred in the joint Malthouse Theatre and Victorian Opera production of The Threepenny Opera in 2010, why the Koonung Secondary College community should see this play. Here’s the response Casey sent in a series of tweets via Twitter.
“3Penny is one of the first musicals to attempt to turn the form on its head - where musicals are normally la-di-da and implausible romance and sugary ridiculousness, 3Penny breaks out the chainsaw. Everyone is corrupt, everyone has an angle. Full of sex and violence. And the school community will be seeing this? I object in the strongest possible terms!”
So there you have it folks - an evening of debauchery awaits you! I hope to see you there.
Leanne Shingles
Talk to the Hat podcast 1: Bec Kavanagh
After attending a session on podcasting at the Emerging Writers Festival I thought I would have a go at producing my own podcast. Here is the first attempt.
Talking to the Hat is Bec Kavanagh, Festival Director of A Thousand Words Festival.
Listen to Talk to the Hat podcat.
Talking to the Hat is Bec Kavanagh, Festival Director of A Thousand Words Festival.
Listen to Talk to the Hat podcat.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Five Formative Books
I woke up with a shocking cold and virtually no voice so I'm at home in front of the heater wearing red tartan ear muffs and warm fluffly slippers, thinking about formative fiction.
Inspired by Leslie Cannold's blog post The Books that Changed me, and with time off work due to illness, I've had a go at compiling my own list of the five books that changed me. If you visit Leslie's blog you'll see I have commented and republished my list there. The descriptions under each book title are shorter and limited to the book itself rather than going off on a tangent as I have below. It seemed poor form to fill Leslie's comments section with such drivel, but here on RToCM there's room for drivel a-plenty!
I'd love to read about the five books that changed you. Post away!
The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver
A ripper yarn, beautifully told. The voices of the Price women/girls are so distinct from each other and the characters are richly drawn. The story structure is superb too. I remember taking comfort in the passage about a mother’s love for her last child, reading the book for the first time when my youngest child was only barely clinging on to infancy, and I knew there would be no more babies after her. “She is the babe you hold in your arms for an hour after she has gone to sleep…She’s the one you can’t put down.” I went on to read most of Barbara’s other novels which were great stories too, but none of them affected me as much as this one did.
To Kill A Mocking Bird - Harper Lee
I read this at school in either year 6 or 7, and I remember being engrossed even though everyone in the class taking had turns reading passages aloud (with varying degrees of literacy) it took ages to get through it. As well as being a great story, reading this book provided our teacher and my classmates and I with the opportunity to talk about racism, justice and inequity in a way we hadn’t done before.
When Marnie Was There - Joan G. Robinson
Our family didn’t have a lot of disposable cash when I was a kid so instead of organising outings on school holidays to keep us occupied, Mum would take my brothers and I to the Opp. Shop at the top of Plenty Road and we’d stock up on books that were 5 or 10 cents each. My youngest brother was almost squashed in his pram by the boxes of books sitting on the awning above his head, and the base of the pram sagged from the weight of books underneath him. As a kid I didn’t have a strong sense of what I liked so Mum chose a lot of books for me, usually stories with great female characters - Cherry Ames, Sue Barton, Trixie Beldon - and this one. I wasn’t keen on it as it looked very dull, so I didn’t pick it up for ages. When I did read it I quickly became entangled in the beautiful, mysterious tale of the friendless foster child Anna who meets Marnie the sand dunes of Norfolk. This was the first book that made me cry, and the first novel-length book I re-read.
The World According to Garp - John Irving
I read this in my late teens, one of my first “grown up” books. I found it shocking, enlightening and funny, and although it was disconcerting to discover that adults perhaps didn’t have all the answers and could be just as confused as we teenagers were, it was also a relief. I looked at the adults in my life with new eyes and different expectations, and the pressure to develop into an “all-knowing” adult myself was relieved a little.
Tales of the City - Armistead Maupin
It seems unfair to single out the first novel in this series of initially 6, and now 8 books, but I do so as it was my introduction to the folk of Barbary Lane, the free-wheeling uncompromising souls who became my fictional friends; I love re-visiting them from time to time and cheer when Armistead releases a new instalment. They are getting quite old now, particularly Mrs Madrigal. How the old girl hangs on is beyond me - I suspect it may be too traumatic for Armistead to consider killing her off. We have lost a few favourites along the way (sweet Dr Jon and corporate giant Edgar Halcyon) and some not-so-favourites (Norman Neal Williams, the creepy P.I. who lived in the roof-top apartment, and charming philanderer Beauchamp Day). All that pot smoking and sherry sipping has to catch up with Anna Madrigal at some point, surely.
I came to the book via the television mini-series that screened on ABC in the mid 1990s, twenty years after instalments were first published in San Francisco newspapers. I remember it was billed as a “controversial” television series, and it was certainly the first time I remember seeing gay and trans-gender characters taking centre stage, and being represented authentically, instead of the vacuous hyper camp all-male clichés of British comedy or the disturbed individuals of American dramas and novels. I don’t know if that makes it “controversial.”
The dialogue driven narrative of Tales of the City is funny and engaging, and for those of us that didn’t live in San Francisco in the 1970s, naïve nice-girl Mary Ann Singleton’s move from Cleveland to ‘cisco is the perfect vehicle for introducing us to that time and place.
In Australia, at the time I read Tales, John Howard was wresting the Prime Ministerial mantle from Paul Keating. From a period of hopeful optimism and burgeoning maturity (as well as a crushing economic recession) our country seemed to change rapidly and dramatically. Small-mindedness, meanness and bigotry dominated public debate, hostile racists were elected to our parliaments, and any attempt to honestly acknowledge our nation’s past and address some of the wrong doing was dismissed as a “black-arm band” view of history that shouldn‘t be entertained. Workers’ rights were under attack, as were the arts, and conservative men and women tried desperately to corral working women back into the home to have the required number of children. And if that wasn’t enough to put women in our place, the federal government deemed sanitary napkins and tampons were “luxuries” and we would therefore pay a goods and services tax on these essential items. (I believe this is still the case in 2011!). What does all this have to do with the book? Nothing really. But is it any wonder I preferred to spend time with fictional characters as big hearted and wise as Anna Madrigal and her Barbary Lane ‘children’ while all that was going on in reality?
My own living arrangements were similar to the Barbary Lane residents. I was in a large share house with a group of open minded big hearted folk, and at times we were like a family too. It's a time I look back on with genuine fondness and perhaps the way I associate those two households, one fictional the other real, has something to do with the fondness I feel for Tales of the City. Or maybe it's just a damn fine book.
Inspired by Leslie Cannold's blog post The Books that Changed me, and with time off work due to illness, I've had a go at compiling my own list of the five books that changed me. If you visit Leslie's blog you'll see I have commented and republished my list there. The descriptions under each book title are shorter and limited to the book itself rather than going off on a tangent as I have below. It seemed poor form to fill Leslie's comments section with such drivel, but here on RToCM there's room for drivel a-plenty!
I'd love to read about the five books that changed you. Post away!
The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver
A ripper yarn, beautifully told. The voices of the Price women/girls are so distinct from each other and the characters are richly drawn. The story structure is superb too. I remember taking comfort in the passage about a mother’s love for her last child, reading the book for the first time when my youngest child was only barely clinging on to infancy, and I knew there would be no more babies after her. “She is the babe you hold in your arms for an hour after she has gone to sleep…She’s the one you can’t put down.” I went on to read most of Barbara’s other novels which were great stories too, but none of them affected me as much as this one did.
To Kill A Mocking Bird - Harper Lee
I read this at school in either year 6 or 7, and I remember being engrossed even though everyone in the class taking had turns reading passages aloud (with varying degrees of literacy) it took ages to get through it. As well as being a great story, reading this book provided our teacher and my classmates and I with the opportunity to talk about racism, justice and inequity in a way we hadn’t done before.
When Marnie Was There - Joan G. Robinson
Our family didn’t have a lot of disposable cash when I was a kid so instead of organising outings on school holidays to keep us occupied, Mum would take my brothers and I to the Opp. Shop at the top of Plenty Road and we’d stock up on books that were 5 or 10 cents each. My youngest brother was almost squashed in his pram by the boxes of books sitting on the awning above his head, and the base of the pram sagged from the weight of books underneath him. As a kid I didn’t have a strong sense of what I liked so Mum chose a lot of books for me, usually stories with great female characters - Cherry Ames, Sue Barton, Trixie Beldon - and this one. I wasn’t keen on it as it looked very dull, so I didn’t pick it up for ages. When I did read it I quickly became entangled in the beautiful, mysterious tale of the friendless foster child Anna who meets Marnie the sand dunes of Norfolk. This was the first book that made me cry, and the first novel-length book I re-read.
The World According to Garp - John Irving
I read this in my late teens, one of my first “grown up” books. I found it shocking, enlightening and funny, and although it was disconcerting to discover that adults perhaps didn’t have all the answers and could be just as confused as we teenagers were, it was also a relief. I looked at the adults in my life with new eyes and different expectations, and the pressure to develop into an “all-knowing” adult myself was relieved a little.
Tales of the City - Armistead Maupin
It seems unfair to single out the first novel in this series of initially 6, and now 8 books, but I do so as it was my introduction to the folk of Barbary Lane, the free-wheeling uncompromising souls who became my fictional friends; I love re-visiting them from time to time and cheer when Armistead releases a new instalment. They are getting quite old now, particularly Mrs Madrigal. How the old girl hangs on is beyond me - I suspect it may be too traumatic for Armistead to consider killing her off. We have lost a few favourites along the way (sweet Dr Jon and corporate giant Edgar Halcyon) and some not-so-favourites (Norman Neal Williams, the creepy P.I. who lived in the roof-top apartment, and charming philanderer Beauchamp Day). All that pot smoking and sherry sipping has to catch up with Anna Madrigal at some point, surely.
I came to the book via the television mini-series that screened on ABC in the mid 1990s, twenty years after instalments were first published in San Francisco newspapers. I remember it was billed as a “controversial” television series, and it was certainly the first time I remember seeing gay and trans-gender characters taking centre stage, and being represented authentically, instead of the vacuous hyper camp all-male clichés of British comedy or the disturbed individuals of American dramas and novels. I don’t know if that makes it “controversial.”
The dialogue driven narrative of Tales of the City is funny and engaging, and for those of us that didn’t live in San Francisco in the 1970s, naïve nice-girl Mary Ann Singleton’s move from Cleveland to ‘cisco is the perfect vehicle for introducing us to that time and place.
In Australia, at the time I read Tales, John Howard was wresting the Prime Ministerial mantle from Paul Keating. From a period of hopeful optimism and burgeoning maturity (as well as a crushing economic recession) our country seemed to change rapidly and dramatically. Small-mindedness, meanness and bigotry dominated public debate, hostile racists were elected to our parliaments, and any attempt to honestly acknowledge our nation’s past and address some of the wrong doing was dismissed as a “black-arm band” view of history that shouldn‘t be entertained. Workers’ rights were under attack, as were the arts, and conservative men and women tried desperately to corral working women back into the home to have the required number of children. And if that wasn’t enough to put women in our place, the federal government deemed sanitary napkins and tampons were “luxuries” and we would therefore pay a goods and services tax on these essential items. (I believe this is still the case in 2011!). What does all this have to do with the book? Nothing really. But is it any wonder I preferred to spend time with fictional characters as big hearted and wise as Anna Madrigal and her Barbary Lane ‘children’ while all that was going on in reality?
My own living arrangements were similar to the Barbary Lane residents. I was in a large share house with a group of open minded big hearted folk, and at times we were like a family too. It's a time I look back on with genuine fondness and perhaps the way I associate those two households, one fictional the other real, has something to do with the fondness I feel for Tales of the City. Or maybe it's just a damn fine book.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Having a larf
I’m just home from seeing Eddie Perfect’s performance of his show Misanthropology for the Melbourne International Comedy Festival at the Famous Spiegel Garden, and it was brilliant. He's such a talented man. Go see it if you can, there are only 4 more shows (and may even be sold out by now). I was entertained, challenged, made to feel mildly uncomfortable, and laughed my guts out. You can’t really ask for more than that!
But that’s not what I want to write about.
I went to the show on my own, running a wee bit later than I’d planned, and managed to walk through the door bang on start time. One of the glamorously attired front of house staff quickly ushered me to the remaining empty seat in the house, I dropped my bag on the floor, whipped my jacket off and sat just as the house lights went down. Timing!
The opening to the show is fairly spectacular, with dramatic lighting and a voice over intro from Eddie before he makes his way into the performance space to sing the first number. The intro, like everything else in the show, was funny. Not side-splitting guffaw funny, but worth more than a mere titter.
The woman sitting next to me laughed, along with most of the people in the tent. But her laugh rang out much louder than everyone else’s (not just because she was sitting right beside me - it was definitely a volume issue). And that was ok.
What made me really notice her laugh was the sound of it. It sounded like a fake laugh. Forced. The sort of laugh you might whip out when you’re trying to make someone feel like they are the funniest person in the world when in reality they are not in fact funny (which of course backfires because it is so obviously fake). Again, that was ok. It’s not unusual for some comedy patrons to bring out the fake laugh early in a show - maybe they want to be supportive of the artist, maybe they’re trying to encourage others to join in - who knows? But it’s not an altogether unusual occurrence.
As the show went on though, the woman’s fake sounding laugh continued to ring out. She was laughing in all the right places, but still I worried about her. It must be really hard work maintaining a fake laugh for so long.
I found myself stealing glances at her to check that she was ok. After all, fake laugh can be an indication that you’re not having a good time, maybe a sympathetic smile might make her feel as though she didn‘t have to try so hard. Maybe a smile from a stranger could help her relax a bit. I saw other heads turn her way, so I’m fairly confident I wasn’t imagining things.
But to my surprise, every time I looked at her she appeared to be genuinely having a great time. It didn’t add up.
And then the realisation hit me. She wasn’t fake laughing at all. She was laughing for real, only her real laugh sounded fake.
What an absolute curse! What a terrible affliction! To spend your life with the sound of your laugh causing suspicion, doubt and concern, when actually all you’re doing is having a giggle.
And it got me thinking about the sound of laughter. Anatomically, we’re all doing the same thing when we laugh, but in the same way that our voices sound different when we speak, I think I can generalise and say we all make slightly different sounds when we individually laugh. En masse though, it can be really difficult for your ear to discern the sound that each individual is making, unless there’s someone with a really distinct laugh in the group.
And in this case, poor old fake-sounding laugh lady was definitely discernible.
It reminded me of another distinctive laugh I heard a while ago. I was in a cinema with a friend and although the movie we saw could never be described as a comedy, it had a few funny moments in it.
A fellow sitting a few rows in front of us was a honker. Whenever he laughed he made a sound that can only be described as Demented Goose. HONK.
I was so alarmed when I first heard it, and wondered if perhaps he was choking. But he was still sitting up right, still moving a little, didn't seem to be jerking (as I imagine he might have if he had been choking) and I settle back to watch the movie. Next funny scene there it was again - HONK!
I exchanged a bemused glance with my friend.
Then it came again - HONK!
And I couldn’t help myself, I started to laugh at his laugh. So did my friend.
Appreciating that we were probably being a bit rude, and being women who tend to throw our heads back and laugh with gusto, we struggled with it but in the end successfully reigned in our mirth.
Until the end of the movie that is. We stayed in our seats while the rest of the patrons filed out, including the honking man. And then we laughed and laughed until we had tears streaming from our eyes.
And there wasn’t anything fake about it.
But that’s not what I want to write about.
I went to the show on my own, running a wee bit later than I’d planned, and managed to walk through the door bang on start time. One of the glamorously attired front of house staff quickly ushered me to the remaining empty seat in the house, I dropped my bag on the floor, whipped my jacket off and sat just as the house lights went down. Timing!
The opening to the show is fairly spectacular, with dramatic lighting and a voice over intro from Eddie before he makes his way into the performance space to sing the first number. The intro, like everything else in the show, was funny. Not side-splitting guffaw funny, but worth more than a mere titter.
The woman sitting next to me laughed, along with most of the people in the tent. But her laugh rang out much louder than everyone else’s (not just because she was sitting right beside me - it was definitely a volume issue). And that was ok.
What made me really notice her laugh was the sound of it. It sounded like a fake laugh. Forced. The sort of laugh you might whip out when you’re trying to make someone feel like they are the funniest person in the world when in reality they are not in fact funny (which of course backfires because it is so obviously fake). Again, that was ok. It’s not unusual for some comedy patrons to bring out the fake laugh early in a show - maybe they want to be supportive of the artist, maybe they’re trying to encourage others to join in - who knows? But it’s not an altogether unusual occurrence.
As the show went on though, the woman’s fake sounding laugh continued to ring out. She was laughing in all the right places, but still I worried about her. It must be really hard work maintaining a fake laugh for so long.
I found myself stealing glances at her to check that she was ok. After all, fake laugh can be an indication that you’re not having a good time, maybe a sympathetic smile might make her feel as though she didn‘t have to try so hard. Maybe a smile from a stranger could help her relax a bit. I saw other heads turn her way, so I’m fairly confident I wasn’t imagining things.
But to my surprise, every time I looked at her she appeared to be genuinely having a great time. It didn’t add up.
And then the realisation hit me. She wasn’t fake laughing at all. She was laughing for real, only her real laugh sounded fake.
What an absolute curse! What a terrible affliction! To spend your life with the sound of your laugh causing suspicion, doubt and concern, when actually all you’re doing is having a giggle.
And it got me thinking about the sound of laughter. Anatomically, we’re all doing the same thing when we laugh, but in the same way that our voices sound different when we speak, I think I can generalise and say we all make slightly different sounds when we individually laugh. En masse though, it can be really difficult for your ear to discern the sound that each individual is making, unless there’s someone with a really distinct laugh in the group.
And in this case, poor old fake-sounding laugh lady was definitely discernible.
It reminded me of another distinctive laugh I heard a while ago. I was in a cinema with a friend and although the movie we saw could never be described as a comedy, it had a few funny moments in it.
A fellow sitting a few rows in front of us was a honker. Whenever he laughed he made a sound that can only be described as Demented Goose. HONK.
I was so alarmed when I first heard it, and wondered if perhaps he was choking. But he was still sitting up right, still moving a little, didn't seem to be jerking (as I imagine he might have if he had been choking) and I settle back to watch the movie. Next funny scene there it was again - HONK!
I exchanged a bemused glance with my friend.
Then it came again - HONK!
And I couldn’t help myself, I started to laugh at his laugh. So did my friend.
Appreciating that we were probably being a bit rude, and being women who tend to throw our heads back and laugh with gusto, we struggled with it but in the end successfully reigned in our mirth.
Until the end of the movie that is. We stayed in our seats while the rest of the patrons filed out, including the honking man. And then we laughed and laughed until we had tears streaming from our eyes.
And there wasn’t anything fake about it.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Vale Sandy Kirby
The first time I met Sandy Kirby was over coffee at Café 101 opposite the Victorian Trades Hall building in Lygon Street, Carlton.
A couple of weeks before we were due to start working on a project together, Sandy had called me to arrange this meeting. It all felt very organised, which was a fairly alien concept to me - mostly my life was shambolic, often chaotic. But Sandy was a very organised woman, and she also understood and appreciated the importance of relationships. She was determined to forge one with me.
At that café I was pleased to encounter a warm humorous woman who was thoroughly intelligent and disarmingly frank. Sandy was softly spoken, and in the time that I knew her I never heard her raise her voice, even in moments of anguish or frustration, preserving her vocal volume for moments of laughter. And there were many of those moments during our time working together.
We worked together on a project celebrating the 150th anniversary of the achievement of the Eight Hour Day in Victoria, sharing office space first in the Melbourne Museum then later moving into the grand Trades Hall building in Lygon Street Carlton.
On day one of the project Sandy’s top priority was joining the CPSU. She’d always been a union member, but never a member of that union. The CPSU were located in Trades Hall at that time, so she raced up and grabbed a couple of forms for us both and got our membership sorted. Once that important formality was out of the way we started work in earnest.
Sandy was the project curator and she created exhibitions and found iconic (and unexpected) images with which to brand the project. She took delight in aesthetics and I remember the way she sighed delightedly upon seeing our re-worked logo “Look at those eights. Such exquisite curves.”
She was right, they were exquisite. And kudos to Melbourne Museum designer Luisa Laino for her meticulous work on the logo.
It was hard going sometimes, convincing trade union officials to support and embrace the arts & cultural programme of events the Eight Hour Day committee had developed, but we persisted. For Sandy, this was not new territory. She had encountered the same hesitance from some unionists in the 1980s while working on the Art and Working Life programme.
This programme encouraged and assisted cultural activities in the Australian trade union movement, including a project that enlisted artists to work with unions on the creation of banners. The union I currently work for, the Finance Sector Union has one of these banners; created by Megan Evans-Griggs for the then Australian Bank Employees’ Union in 1988.
The Victorian union movement in conjunction with the government of the day celebrated the 150th anniversary of the Eight Hour Day with 22 events staged over most of 2006, and Sandy and I were involved in most of these to varying degrees. Sandy was heavily involved in the exhibition of trade union banners at Melbourne Museum and an exhibition that travelled around the state called It’s About Time!
The research, writing, and location and selection of images for these projects fell to Sandy, and it was Sandy who suggested we track down and use images created by Melbourne photographer Ponch Hawkes for the overall branding of the project. It was an inspired suggestion, and although it wasn’t a popular suggestion in some quarters of the union movement I still believe it was the right one.
There was so much about this project that was fun that it’s quite difficult to nominate a favourite event or moment, but I do have fond memories of Sandy and I travelling around the state scouting exhibition locations for It’s About Time! In particular I recall an overnight stop in Albury where much wine was consumed, much laughter occurred and much shit was spoken. How either of us managed to drive a vehicle the next morning is unfathomable. We took turns, but both felt equally seedy. It was a pretty quiet drive to Shepparton, that’s for sure.
During the latter part of the project, Sandy became ill with cancer, and began treatment.
She continued to work throughout her treatment, even though it was clear that chemotherapy and radiotherapy were taking their toll and sapping her energy. The treatment worked though, and Sandy entered a period of remission and regained her energy and zest for life.
By then the Eight Hour Day project was over, and Sandy and I went our separate ways in search of our next challenges and adventures.
The last time I saw Sandy she was being cared for at the Caritas Christi hospice. A new cancer, this time a brain tumour, had invaded her body. Her left ear could no longer hear and left eye could no longer see, but when I visited she was listening to Radio National with her good ear and working on The Age crossword using her good eye. Her bed was draped in colourful scarves; artworks and images covered walls and shelves. Sandy’s room overlooked a garden courtyard and she was at pains to point out that it wasn’t a bad place to die, especially as the staff were keeping the religious crap to a minimum.
Sandy trained her good eye on me and it pierced through my façade as it always had done in the past. And just like she had done in the past, Sandy asked me the questions I didn’t want to be asked, on all the things I didn’t really want to face. Are you still in the same job? Are you still painting? How’s your love life?
The period I worked with Sandy was one of the most tumultuous of my life – marriage breakdown and divorce, regular separation from my children, a new relationship, lost friendships, new friendships, developing as an artist. I consider it my very good fortune to have spent this time in the company of such a wise, funny, good natured, challenging and caring woman as Sandy Kirby.
Sandy was a life partner to David, a mother to Alexander, a feminist, a writer, an historian, an artist, a teacher, a researcher, a builder, a communicator, a unionist, and a helluva woman. She was my colleague and my friend, and I feel blessed to have known her.
She taught me a lot and introduced me to ideas and artists that I may not have encountered otherwise, and she put up with me when I was being bitchy or tiresome. She encouraged me, in fact she never doubted me. I liked the way she questioned my reasoning when it needed questioning, and the way she gently steered me in a different direction rather than telling me I was wrong. And she infused me with a passion for Sudoku that I am yet to shake.
Sandy impressed upon me that cultural pursuits and art were integral to organised labour’s aim of communicating and engaging with the wider community, and I still passionately believe this to be the case.
It would be a fitting tribute to the life and work of Sandy Kirby if the Australian union movement made more of an effort to celebrate and promote union culture and to never forget the significance of union history or that history’s relationship with current struggles.
Vale Sandy. Rest in peace.
A couple of weeks before we were due to start working on a project together, Sandy had called me to arrange this meeting. It all felt very organised, which was a fairly alien concept to me - mostly my life was shambolic, often chaotic. But Sandy was a very organised woman, and she also understood and appreciated the importance of relationships. She was determined to forge one with me.
At that café I was pleased to encounter a warm humorous woman who was thoroughly intelligent and disarmingly frank. Sandy was softly spoken, and in the time that I knew her I never heard her raise her voice, even in moments of anguish or frustration, preserving her vocal volume for moments of laughter. And there were many of those moments during our time working together.
We worked together on a project celebrating the 150th anniversary of the achievement of the Eight Hour Day in Victoria, sharing office space first in the Melbourne Museum then later moving into the grand Trades Hall building in Lygon Street Carlton.
On day one of the project Sandy’s top priority was joining the CPSU. She’d always been a union member, but never a member of that union. The CPSU were located in Trades Hall at that time, so she raced up and grabbed a couple of forms for us both and got our membership sorted. Once that important formality was out of the way we started work in earnest.
Sandy was the project curator and she created exhibitions and found iconic (and unexpected) images with which to brand the project. She took delight in aesthetics and I remember the way she sighed delightedly upon seeing our re-worked logo “Look at those eights. Such exquisite curves.”
She was right, they were exquisite. And kudos to Melbourne Museum designer Luisa Laino for her meticulous work on the logo.
It was hard going sometimes, convincing trade union officials to support and embrace the arts & cultural programme of events the Eight Hour Day committee had developed, but we persisted. For Sandy, this was not new territory. She had encountered the same hesitance from some unionists in the 1980s while working on the Art and Working Life programme.
This programme encouraged and assisted cultural activities in the Australian trade union movement, including a project that enlisted artists to work with unions on the creation of banners. The union I currently work for, the Finance Sector Union has one of these banners; created by Megan Evans-Griggs for the then Australian Bank Employees’ Union in 1988.
The Victorian union movement in conjunction with the government of the day celebrated the 150th anniversary of the Eight Hour Day with 22 events staged over most of 2006, and Sandy and I were involved in most of these to varying degrees. Sandy was heavily involved in the exhibition of trade union banners at Melbourne Museum and an exhibition that travelled around the state called It’s About Time!
The research, writing, and location and selection of images for these projects fell to Sandy, and it was Sandy who suggested we track down and use images created by Melbourne photographer Ponch Hawkes for the overall branding of the project. It was an inspired suggestion, and although it wasn’t a popular suggestion in some quarters of the union movement I still believe it was the right one.
There was so much about this project that was fun that it’s quite difficult to nominate a favourite event or moment, but I do have fond memories of Sandy and I travelling around the state scouting exhibition locations for It’s About Time! In particular I recall an overnight stop in Albury where much wine was consumed, much laughter occurred and much shit was spoken. How either of us managed to drive a vehicle the next morning is unfathomable. We took turns, but both felt equally seedy. It was a pretty quiet drive to Shepparton, that’s for sure.
During the latter part of the project, Sandy became ill with cancer, and began treatment.
She continued to work throughout her treatment, even though it was clear that chemotherapy and radiotherapy were taking their toll and sapping her energy. The treatment worked though, and Sandy entered a period of remission and regained her energy and zest for life.
By then the Eight Hour Day project was over, and Sandy and I went our separate ways in search of our next challenges and adventures.
The last time I saw Sandy she was being cared for at the Caritas Christi hospice. A new cancer, this time a brain tumour, had invaded her body. Her left ear could no longer hear and left eye could no longer see, but when I visited she was listening to Radio National with her good ear and working on The Age crossword using her good eye. Her bed was draped in colourful scarves; artworks and images covered walls and shelves. Sandy’s room overlooked a garden courtyard and she was at pains to point out that it wasn’t a bad place to die, especially as the staff were keeping the religious crap to a minimum.
Sandy trained her good eye on me and it pierced through my façade as it always had done in the past. And just like she had done in the past, Sandy asked me the questions I didn’t want to be asked, on all the things I didn’t really want to face. Are you still in the same job? Are you still painting? How’s your love life?
The period I worked with Sandy was one of the most tumultuous of my life – marriage breakdown and divorce, regular separation from my children, a new relationship, lost friendships, new friendships, developing as an artist. I consider it my very good fortune to have spent this time in the company of such a wise, funny, good natured, challenging and caring woman as Sandy Kirby.
Sandy was a life partner to David, a mother to Alexander, a feminist, a writer, an historian, an artist, a teacher, a researcher, a builder, a communicator, a unionist, and a helluva woman. She was my colleague and my friend, and I feel blessed to have known her.
She taught me a lot and introduced me to ideas and artists that I may not have encountered otherwise, and she put up with me when I was being bitchy or tiresome. She encouraged me, in fact she never doubted me. I liked the way she questioned my reasoning when it needed questioning, and the way she gently steered me in a different direction rather than telling me I was wrong. And she infused me with a passion for Sudoku that I am yet to shake.
Sandy impressed upon me that cultural pursuits and art were integral to organised labour’s aim of communicating and engaging with the wider community, and I still passionately believe this to be the case.
It would be a fitting tribute to the life and work of Sandy Kirby if the Australian union movement made more of an effort to celebrate and promote union culture and to never forget the significance of union history or that history’s relationship with current struggles.
Vale Sandy. Rest in peace.
Friday, February 4, 2011
Cooking: Swedish Meatballs
I hadn't made this dish before but it was so easy and tasty that I'm sure I'll be making it again and again.
Throw a handful of chopped fresh herbs, like flat-leaf parsley, dill or chives (or all three!) into a bowl with 300g of fresh pork mince and 300g of fresh beef mince. Add 75g of breadcrumbs, 100 ml of milk, one egg and a teaspoon of allspice. Mix together with your hands. To make “elegant meatballs” I rolled half the mixture into a sausage shape and then sliced it up before rolling the meatballs (keeping hands wet as much as possible).
Lay the meatballs on an oiled tray, cover with cling film and refrigerate for an hour.
Heat some olive oil in a pan and gently fry the meatballs, rolling them around the pan until browned and transfer cooked meatballs to a plate.
Drain the oil from the pan and add the juice of half a lemon, a tablespoon of plain flour, 60 ml of double cream (I used regular cream and increased the amount I added), and 300ml of beef stock. The recipe I was following also called for the addition of a heaped tablespoon of berry jam, but I dispensed with that.
Bring to the boil, then simmer until the sauce thickens enough to stick to the meatballs. Return meatballs to the pan and stir until they are well coated.
I served the meatballs with some baked potatoes and a crunchy salad with lettuce, sugar snap peas, cherry tomatoes, grated carrot and spring onions.
Yum yum!
I found this recipe in Jamie Oliver's book Jamie does Spain, Italy, Sweden, Morocco, Greece and France.
Monday, January 17, 2011
Dear books, I love youse
I love books. I love the feel of them in my hand and the weight of them in my bag. I love the sound of pages turning and that f-f-f-f-f-f-f-tt sound the pages make when you fan them. I've heard people say they love the smell of books. I love the smell of a brand new book as it wafts up when you turn the cover of your new book but I'm not fond of the dusty, musty smell of books acquired after sitting unread for a time.
I love having them around me and letting my gaze linger on favourite titles while I remember the tales and characters within the covers. They are the first things I packed each time I moved house and I couldn't go a night in a new place without cracking open at least one box of books.
And it hasn't been a one sided relationship. They've kept me company in lonely times and when I've been waiting for transport/doctors/dates/friends, they've cosseted and cocooned me when I've needed comforting or distraction, and they lull me to sleep every night.
But like all relationships there are cons. Collecting dust and taking up space being chief among them.
Notwithstanding these small irritations I still have about 80% of the books that I have either bought or had given to me over the last forty years. And while you might imagine a person wouldn't accumulate a lot of books over that time, let me assure you, you can. Especially when you take into account my inability to walk past a second-hand book store/sale/market without at least having a look, and that I receive at least one book at Christmas and birthdays.
It all adds up, and with so many good books on hand its sometimes hard to let them go. You have to apply a ruthless attitude to book-culling but every time I try to do a serious cull I hang on to all the ones I enjoyed reading and hope to read again some day, and all the ones I bought thinking I would read but haven't yet, in case I do decide to read them some day. Most of the books on my shelves I have read at least once, but my proximity to the quarterly Darebin Library book sale has seen the numbers of "I'd like to read it someday" books swell.
Over the years I've given away heaps of books to charities and our local school to help them with fundraising, but still my bookshelves are overflowing and there are piles of books beside the bed, on the coffee table and the kitchen bench. I found an unopened box of books in a cupboard yesterday, and a stack of books out in the shed. Not just my books either. My two children each boast a fair collection of books too.
In a further step along the road to putting my own stamp on the space I'm inhabiting I am rearranging the lounge room for the first time in ten years, and faced with the task of moving bookshelves (and by extension their contents) it is clear to me that we are running out of space and need to cull again.
So over the weekend and this evening I have been filling boxes. Out go the Little Golden Books my children have outgrown. Out go the children's encyclopaedia sets from the 70s and 80s. Out go most of the picture books – there were some I couldn't bear to part with though, like When The Big Dog Barks (by Munzee Curtis, illustrations by Susan Avishai) and Jane Hissey's gorgeous Little Bear and Old Bear books (lovely illustrations).
I kept classics like A Sausage Went For A Walk, Winnie The Pooh, Robert Ingpen illustrated versions of Peter Pan & Wendy and The Secret Garden, and all of our Dr Seuss books. I kept the books that made us laugh like Kaz Cooke's The Terrible Underpants and it's equally brilliant follow-up Wanda-Linda Goes Beserk. Maurice Sendak's Where The Wild Things Are and In The Night Kitchen stayed, along with Werner Holzwarth/Wolf Erlbruch's The Story of the Little Mole Who Knew It Was None Of His Business. The entertainingly subversive Click, Clack, Moo, Cows That Type and Vote For Duck also remain on the shelf. And quite a few more. Sigh.
Still, I have managed to fill four large boxes. As I stuff the culled books into boxes I try not to think about how many times I read them aloud to my children before they could read, and the times we read them aloud together since. I try not to remember the funny voices we put on, or the pictures we marvelled at, or the way we cuddled up on the couch or in bed to share and enjoy these stories. Because if I do remember for too long I'll be tempted to hang on to them in the vain hope that by keeping them I will relive those times. But the memories are inside me not in the books, so I continue to cull and pack and shove out the door.
Re-homing these books is a celebration of my children's maturity and hopefully they will provide pleasure to other, younger children. Besides, with more than 40,000 new book titles published each year we need room to store all of the books to come. We need room for the new stories, the new authors and illustrators that will delight, engross and challenge us in years to come.
We'll read some of those new stories on e-readers, and maybe some old ones too. But I think there'll always be room in my house for a book or two.
What are your favourite books?
Following the recent devastating floods in Queensland, Romance Writers of Australia has launched a book appeal for flooded communities. Find out more and donate books if you can.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
The one where this blog becomes a bit like those blogs about cooking and eating.
I've never been a fan of making New Year's resolutions. There didn't seem to be much point making a vow that no one seemed to expect you to keep. Whenever asked what mine were I'd scrabble around in my brain for a response that would satisfy, rather than searching for something meaningful and achievable. For many years I didn't even bother, “I don't make resolutions,” became the stock response.
I spent this New Year's Eve with new friends, and not having celebrated the New Year with them before I was surprised by the seriousness with which the making of resolutions was undertaken. Surprised and delighted as it turns out, as the ensuing discussion delved into many areas of our respective lives and gave us all a bit to think about and made us laugh.
I held steadfast on the night and didn't make any resolutions then, but I decided to spend some time thinking about what resolutions I could make if I did want to make some. One friend suggested that five resolutions was a good number, so you could cover off maybe one largish goal, a couple of medium sized ones, and two smallish goals. And if you don't keep them all, the odds are that you'll keep at least one or two, which would be an achievement in itself.
Eleven days hence I've managed to come up with three, and they are neither exciting nor particularly challenging. That's the way I'm feeling right now anyway, on the tail of a three week break from the work/school/life grind. But on the eve of hurling myself back into the maelstrom of fulltime work, I wonder how long it will be before these three resolutions are harder to stick to.
I've spent the last three weeks simply pottering around at home gardening, cooking, eating, sorting, reading and I reckon I've spent about a third of that time washing dishes
1.Leave the car at home once a week and walk to and from the station.
Our family were without a car for three months in 2010 and while at times it was a pain in the arse we were all a bit fitter and leaner due to all the walking – there's a fair bit of festive season excess to walk off. The extra time spent walking together was great for our relationships, we had some top chats. A regular day of the week will be set once we know the children's school and extra-curricular activities schedules for 2011.
2.Cook something I've never cooked before at least once a fortnight.
There's a stack of cookbooks in my kitchen, I scour the recipes on the cooking pages of The Age, and I'm a huge fan of the dinner spinner on the AllRecipes iPhone app. Yet I don't cook new dishes all that often. I was gifted a new cookbook for Christmas, Jamie Oliver's Jamie does Spain, Italy, Sweden, Morocco, Greece, France and this seems to have inspired a rush of exploration of new ingredients and recipes. It's been fun so far, as well as tasty.
Recipes successfully attempted so far:
Chorizo and Tomato Salad
Croquetas
Patatas Bravas
Ratatouille-style Briouats
Choc Chip Banana Muffins
Jansson's Temptation
3.Establish a vegie garden
In some areas of my life I'm action-orientated, a doer. In other areas, such as say home improvements, I'm more of a plodder. Things can bother me for years before I act on them; and so it was with the Hills Hoist swing set. I remember the night it was assembled and installed. Like so many other parents that night we spent our Christmas Eve sweating and swearing in the dark while taking fortifying sips of Santa's whiskey. Many hours and skinned knuckles later we looked proudly on the safe and sturdy swing set, and in the morning two happy little faces shone when they spotted the contraption.
The kids grew out of the swing set about five years ago, and it has sat there taking up space in our suburban sanctuary ever since. Occasionally smaller children would visit us and take pleasure in swinging on the yellow plastic seats, but even those children have now grown too big for it. I kept telling myself I'd dismantle it when I had time, how hard could it be? Lurking in the back of my thoughts though was that sweaty Christmas Eve installation, and I imagined the task would be more daunting than I realised.
One morning last week I got up, walked out on to the back deck to survey my tiny kingdom (queendom?) and decided that was the day the swing set would go. I ventured forth confidently with my shifting spanner to undertake the massive task. I put on sunscreen, took a bottle of water out with me, and fretted about not wearing a hat. After all, I could be out there a while.
I was shocked by the looseness of the nuts – how had this thing stayed upright for so long? The long uprights that were pegged deep in the earth slide out easily. Twenty minutes after I turned the first nut I was swing-set free.
Idiot.
I'm going to use that space to establish a vegie garden.
Cooking: Chorizo and Tomato Salad
The first recipe from my new Jamie Oliver cookbook that I tried. Three large tomatoes and a punnet of cherry tomatoes chopped up and thrown in a bowl with parsley and spring onions and a splash of red wine vinegar. Slice up and fry a chorizo sausage, when it's cripsy throw in some garlic and turn the heat down. When you don't want the garlic to cook any more (don't burn it!) add a splash of red wine vinegar. Mix the sausage with tomato mix for a yummy salad.
This recipe is from the Jamie Oliver cookbook Jamie does Spain, Italy, Sweden, Morocco, Greece, France.
This recipe is from the Jamie Oliver cookbook Jamie does Spain, Italy, Sweden, Morocco, Greece, France.
Cooking: Croquetas
Another Jamie Oliver recipe from Spain, this was a near-disaster. You make a standard white sauce with butter, flour and milk and add nutmeg, cheese and ham (prosciutto is recommended but I went with leg ham), then you chill the mixture. Once stiff you're supposed to mould the mixture into little sausage shapes and coat them in flour, egg and breadcrumbs and fry in hot oil for a few minutes. I'm not sure if my mixture hadn't been chilled sufficiently, or whether I'd mucked up the amount of flour needed (I really need to look for my kitchen scales!) but the mixture wasn't exactly stiff, more sticky than anything else. It was messy and took ages, and I ended up with some fairly munted shapes, switching to patties rather than sausage shapes (although I did manage to mould a couple of them into little snags). A very tasty dish but time consuming a labour intensive. Including chilling time, it took three hours from start to finish.
This recipe is from the Jamie Oliver cookbook Jamie does Spain, Italy, Sweden, Morocco, Greece, France.
Cooking: Patatas Bravas
In the Special Tapas section of the Jamie Oliver cookbook I found this scrumptious dish. Parboil and then fry potatoes, adding garlic and rosemary for the last minute of frying. Once drained, sprinkle paprika, fennel seeds and salt over the potatoes and toss until coated. The potatoes are served with a sauce, either on the side or covering the potatoes. The bravas sauce has onion and garlic (softened), chilli, finely chopped carrot, thyme, tinned tomatoes and red wine vinegar. Once that's all in the pot you simmer for 15 minutes until the carrots are soft and the sauce is thick. Brilliant!
Cooking: Ratatouille-style Briouats
This was really easy and so scrumptious I wanted to eat the whole plateful! You make a basic ratatouille by roasting largish pieces of tomato, zucchini (courgette), onion, red pepper, and eggplant (aubergine) and garlic for 45 mins, then chopping it up roughly and popping into a bowl covered with the juice of one lemon. Lay out sheets of filo pastry and fill with the ratatouille and roll up the pastry covering the ends as you go. You can either shallow fry them or bake in the oven (we baked). To serve, squeeze more lemon over the top and add chopped parsley. On the side we had a beautiful simple sauce of natural yoghurt mixed with a teaspoon of harissa. Yum Yum!
This recipe is from Jamie Oliver's book Jamie does Spain, Italy, Sweden, Morocco, Greece, France.
Cooking: Choc Chip Banana Muffins
Breaking away from Jamie Oliver briefly I headed over to Taste.com.au for this easy and yummo recipe. http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/15298/choc+chip+banana+muffins
Kudos to Darren for supplying the Choc Chips!
Kudos to Darren for supplying the Choc Chips!
Cooking: Jansson's Temptation
I have no idea who Jansson is or how he or she was tempted, and the Jamie Oliver cookbook sheds no light on this. The dish though, is very good. Layers of grated potato sandwiching an onion/garlic/anchovy mix with thyme and lemon zest, double cream and milk slathered over the top follwed by breadcrumbs mixed with thyme and the remaining lemon zest. Baked for 45 minutes and served hot, it's got great texture and taste. The kids however were unimpressed. My son spotted a slice of onion and declared he wouldn't eat it (despite knowing that most of his favourite dishes contain onion) and my daughter gave it a go and said it made her want to vomit. Sadly, this recipe won't be on high rotation in our house.
Jansson's Temptation from Jamie Oliver's book Jamie does Spain, Italy, Sweden, Morocco, Greece, France.
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